Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

Thank you for your kind words. Much more of the story to come.

What would be your high estimate.

That just sounds ominous; good update, BTW...

Maybe twenty thousand.

Sixty–Two

In a strategic sense, Russia had lost the Battle of Copenhagen. They had come to Denmark to seize control of the Danish Straits at an identified weak point. To gain that control, to deny use of the Straits to NATO and open them for their own use, a base of operations needed to be held around Copenhagen. Aircraft needed to be flown from here and even use made of port facilities; NATO needed to be driven away with no chance of restricting Russian operations. Failure had come though. The immediate – and somewhat foolhardy if successful – quick NATO response had seen the Russians take a beating. Their landed forces were unable to link up with each other and heavily engaged. The sea link back home was cut when the major warships of their Baltic Fleet had suffered grievous losses. Copenhagen International Airport was a ruin and much of the port area was smashed up by artillery, air strikes and infantry fighting. What Russian forces had made it to Copenhagen weren’t going home and no one was coming to support them. However, the loss which they had suffered wasn’t known to those on the ground involved in the continued fighting on the island of Zealand. No one told them that they were doomed. They had orders to fight and did so. Offshore, several amphibious ships which could have in theory lifted them off the island and tried to make a run back home – a dangerous proposition indeed – had no orders to do that. Should they had received them to do that, it wouldn’t have mattered. In the early hours of the war’s second day, what should have been a pleasant Sunday if it wasn’t for this growing conflict, NATO aircraft attacked them. They had no cover of their own and were massacred with four of the Ropucha-class amphibious ships hit by bombs and missiles. Further air attacks over Denmark by NATO forces today had been planned yet were unable to take place with yesterday’s intensity: aircraft were directed elsewhere, over Poland, leaving very few to fill the skies above. As to the fighting men down on the ground below what aircraft there were above, those Russians, Danes and other NATO troops, they fought on. The Russian Naval Infantry were unable to link up from their two separate landing sites. They also failed to take control of Copenhagen’s second airport – the one at Roskilde – yet did manage to get men to the disused former airfield at Værløse though. Neither the international airport nor either of the two smaller ones were any use though. Russia’s marines died fighting for them yet no more aircraft were coming to make use of such places. Like NATO, Russia now had its aircraft active elsewhere as they too focused on Poland rather than the distant Denmark. British and Danish troops fought close up with the Russians. Fighting men dug-in and exchanged fire from sheltered positions. Mines were laid and more shelter created where possible. Armour operated by both sides was now unable to make forward leaps like the day before and so the fighting became static in terms of mass movement forward to take or retake territory. Just because the frontlines weren’t moving greatly today, it didn’t make the day’s fighting any less deadly. Gunfire continued all day. There was shelling, rocket attacks, missiles strikes and even hand-to-hand fighting in-places. Those fighting were fighting for their lives and giving it their all… while ignorant of the grander strategic situation.

Around this fight there remained civilians. Danes in their thousands were trapped behind the lines. Those on the NATO side of the frontlines were increasing moving away. Yesterday, amidst the initial confusion and terror, many people had stayed put. There were official announcements telling them to do so and many had. Others who had risked going outside had run the gauntlet of gunfire and the fatal lessons which they learnt was witnessed by others. Today though, they were instructed to leave. Take only what you need, the message came, and leave only when evacuated under official instructions. As can be expected, this didn’t go to plan and there was chaos everywhere. People tried to take too much with them, others wouldn’t leave and there were those who left only to soon want to go back to their homes. People were people, individuals overcome by emotion. Those on the other side, trapped in an occupation zone, were left alone by the Russians inside their country. There was little molestation of civilians from the Naval Infantry soldiers. Some did misbehave – again, people were individuals – yet that was rare. They were too busy to commit large instances of robbery, rape and murder. Some civilians were removed form their homes were those buildings were needed but others were just in the way with efforts made to ignore them. There were approaches made to the Russians from self-appointed representatives who wanted to talk about access to food, shelter and medical care but the Russians just didn’t have the time nor inclination to bother with them at this time. Elsewhere on Zealand and throughout Denmark there were more civilians caught up in this war. Their response to it was once more a patchwork of reactions. Many stayed in their homes while many more fled. Roads were jammed by broken-down cars and others which had run out of petrol. People fled with no idea of where they were going and ended up stuck. This included access to and from (on both sides) the Great Belt Fixed Link, the bridges and tunnels which ran from Zealand across to the Jutland mainland through the middle of Denmark; the Øresund Bridge, which linked Copenhagen to Malmo in Sweden, wasn’t jammed with cars but rather closed at each end by Russians and Swedes respectively (not cooperating in this though!). The blocking of roads didn’t affect the rail links throughout the country. These were open. Russia had planned to bomb them from their air yet had taken those heavy air losses and were unable to. Danish troops mobilised from the reserves were using these now as they converged upon Copenhagen. In addition, more NATO troops to join the British, this time the Franco-German Brigade coming up from its pre-war staging post in eastern Germany, were making use of the rail connections as well. They were coming to the Danish capital to fight for it. The intention was that tomorrow, on Monday August 9th, the fight would be reignited with a counteroffensive to liberate the city.

The Baltic remained a battlefield throughout the Sunday. Russia’s warships had suffered heavily yesterday yet NATO losses had occurred too, especially among those which were east of the Danish Straits. There was a gathering of warships on the western side in the Kattegat & Skagerrak and plans were afoot to bring them through in the coming days: having several firing their guns to influence the Copenhagen fight, as the Russians had done during the opening assault, was something greatly sought. There were too all of those ports east of the Straits too. The Eagle Guardian war plan called for their use though Russia had stopped this by assaulting Denmark. NATO still wanted to open them up. In the skies above the sea, each side had seen a reduction in available air power due to the fighting in Poland. Some aircraft were still flying on Baltic missions though. This included a flight of three MiG-31 interceptors which launched a lone missile each on the Sunday afternoon while just off the Latvia coastline. They turned for home without ever having come anywhere near those they engaged. The missiles flew onwards, crossing Sweden as they did so – their airspace had been repeatedly violated – before coming out over the water where the Kattegat was. One missed its target, the other two struck home. The pair of NATO aircraft hit were aircraft whose losses would really hurt. One was a French E-3 Sentry and the other was a RAF Nimrod R1. They were blown out of the sky by missiles undetected from aircraft not on their threat board. The third target, a NATO-crewed E-3 aircraft on the AWACS mission as well, only escaped destruction and complete crew loss through luck. This was the second attempt by the Russian Air Force to use its KS-172S long-range air-to-air missiles against high-value NATO aircraft: their overnight attempt to hit others had failed completely but their opponents hadn’t seen those missiles either during their misses. This time though the targeting was better and the big, irreplaceable aircraft targeted were brought down. NATO panic in the aftermath affected their air operations as they had no idea of what occurred. Advantage was sought here with a flight of Tupolev-22M bombers showing up over the Kattegat not long afterwards. They had come the long way around – unable to take the shortcut over Sweden – and been detected even when flying low, fast and behind what was hoped was undetected silent jamming. A Danish F-16 got one and brought it crashing down above Zealand (it erupted in a fireball over a small Danish town when doing so) yet the other made a high-speed dash to get away from that NATO fighter and others in the sky, all of whom were directed by the surviving AWACS aircraft. The Tu-22M went over Sweden whilst doing so and this allowed it to escape. There’d be recriminations from this for sure.


Northern Poland was a battlefield like Eastern Poland was. There was a different kind of fighting currently ongoing here though. Masses of armour where huge mechanised armies crashed into each other was yet to happen here. That was soon to occur, just not today. Instead, there was what could best be described as ‘skirmishing’ for the time being. The NATO-organised Allied Rapid Reaction Corps was waiting for those Russian heavy forces which had invaded Latvia and crossed into Lithuania to arrive. There was fighting on the border between Poland and Kaliningrad in the meantime as well as in the Suwalki Gap. Those involved fought a furious fight and would decry the idea that it was ‘just skirmishing’ when they fought and died in great numbers.

When the Russian Twentieth Guards Army showed up after coming down through the Baltic States, the Eleventh Corps was be subsumed into that command. For now, they fought on the Polish frontier. Shelling and missile attacks came along with border incursions. The 1st Guards Motor Rifle Division (that ad hoc formation formed from two independent brigades) crossed over into Poland where it could. The Poles on the other side, their 16th Mechanised Division, hadn’t taken that ‘step back’ yesterday that others had. They were instructed to hold ground and that they did. This resulted in multiple engagements taking place with the majority on the Polish side of the frontier. However, in other places, the Russians were stopped cold. Neither their 7th nor 79th Brigades could overcome resistance and get forward to any serious depth. Battles of manoeuvre were fought alongside static fights yet, when all was said and done, the lines ended up at the end of the day where they had first started. A huge expanse of firepower had been exchanged and casualties occurred at an horrific rate all for what could arguably be considered nothing if one was to look at the fight in terms of territory taken (or not taken to be precise). Yet it was important. The Russians made sure that the fight was on Polish soil and also kept the Poles busy before the Twentieth Army arrived. As to the ARRC, they knew that the Russians were bringing down their tank divisions plus all of those army-level attachments. They wanted to make sure that the Russians started from as far back as possible. Polish views within NATO were that this was their sovereign soil which they were fighting for. Their senior officers understood the big picture and were mentally prepared to be forced to withdraw to fight the bigger battle with space, yet before then their business was killing Russian invaders. Behind them, they knew that they had much support waiting there. The corps commander, Lt.-General Shirreff, had significant forces position to the south of the Poles. There was the 1st Armoured Division from the British Army along with a brigade from both the French Army and the US Army too. Further reinforcements in the coming days were promised to Shirreff in the form of a division each from his own country’s army and the US Army (the 3rd UK Mechanised and 4th US Infantry) plus there was also another Polish division in the rear so far uncommitted to battle that he hoped to get his hands on as well. With other smaller reinforcements, brigade-sized units from many countries all promised to Poland, the ARRC should be able to hold back the Russians. However, the right flank, facing eastern Poland became more and more of a concern throughout the day. The Russians were advancing there from out of Belarus and Shirreff worried that reinforcements promised to him would be diverted to that fight. His staff still had unfulfilled plans to advance north, bypassing Kaliningrad, and go up into the Baltic States. Those were looking like they never going to see the light of day due to what was happening over on the flank. Moreover, that supposed delayed – surely cancelled? – advance into Lithuania and onwards was meant to go through the Suwalki Gap.

American and Polish forces in that area at the north-eastern corner of Poland started the Sunday like they spent the Saturday: keeping the Russians and Belorussians out of this access route which ran north-south. However, as the war’s second day wore onwards, they became increasingly surrounded. A noose was tightening. The Americans with their 2nd Cavalry Regiment had mounting casualties where their Stryker armoured vehicles were knocked out in larger numbers than before. These became ‘missile magnets’ in the words of their regimental commander where Russian attack helicopters and dismounted infantry focused firing on them. Faced with a modern anti-tank missile fired by professionals, not a roadside bomb or a hand-me-down RPG in the hands of an insurgent, the losses to these vehicles, and thus their crews, became too many to bare. Both the Belorussians with their 11th Guards Mechanised Brigade and Russia’s 3rd Motor Rifle Division squeezed them at the front and sought to get behind them. Polish forces with their 6th Airborne Brigade and 18th Reconnaissance Regiment were unable to stand up to the invaders of their country once those could concentrate. It had taken them time to do so, to get enough forces on Polish soil to make it matter, but once they did, the situation became impossible. Most of that Polish regiment – another light force and half-manned by reservists – was lost and then the paratroopers were forced to start edging back. The Russians had brought forward their heavy guns while the Belorussians had moved in infantry in number. The Russians had their armour looping around the back and the Americans couldn’t stop this. That armour was mostly older equipment, T-72 tanks and BTR-70 infantry vehicles, but the 2nd Cav’ had no tanks of their own. There was a company of Stryker M1128 versions with 105mm cannons yet these weren’t tanks. Time ran out. Shirreff and the AARC took command of the forces in the Suwalki Gap when CJTF-East finally released them from its own direct control and the order came to withdraw. A fighting withdrawal was attempted but it was too late. The invaders had the numbers and NATO forces were too worn down. Almost of the Poles were lost before the way out was finally shut. As to the Americans, the 2nd Cav’ got away generally intact… apart from earlier inflicted casualties. This was a reason to celebrate yet it wasn’t done so. The American soldiers knew they had escaped with their lives and were silent. AARC didn’t celebrate because overall, they had met defeat. And the Poles weren’t happy either with so many more of their soldiers, elite troops too, not making it out when the Americans did. Of course, no one would have wanted to see them all lost and every man who got out was a fighting man ready to fight again elsewhere, yet the Suwalki Gap was a fight which was going to be remembered for all the wrong reasons. What had really been achieved apart from all of those casualties?

When you hear the other side shout "fix bayonets", that's when you know your day has gone to s@@t.

Let loose the Mad Dog of war!

(Someone edit my terrible attempt at paraphrasing The Bard?)